


Operation Seagull

by Shepherd23



Series: Edited Universe - A Briefer History of Magic [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, During a picnic in the park, Extended family chaos with fluff, Family (primarily Snow and Rumplestiltskin) argue over how it should be done, Gen, Neal/Emma engagement and wedding plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 01:58:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10844130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shepherd23/pseuds/Shepherd23
Summary: While the family has lunch in the park, Neal and Emma’s wedding plans get discussed; Snow has some ideas, Rumplestiltskin disagrees with all of them, Regina won’t offer her opinion and Robin makes a slightly embarrassing confession about his own wedding dayTakes place during chapter 2 of 'Be All My Sins Remember'd'. Sorta standalone; you shouldn't need to have read that first





	Operation Seagull

**Author's Note:**

> This is pre-wedding family spats; the actual wedding appears later in the main story, and the proposal is in chapter 26 of 'There But for the Grace of God'

“Mom, I told you! I’m not doing the whole grand fairy-tale wedding thing!”

And so the conversation had turned, once again, to the wedding. Even a family picnic in the park wasn’t immune to his mother-in-law’s planning. Neal wasn’t surprised. Snow had talked of almost nothing else whenever she’d been awake enough to do so. He spooned rice into his mouth – Much really was a fantastic cook; Neal made a note to ask him for the recipe later – and waited for the inevitable blow-up.

“Why not?” Snow exclaimed as Neal sighed and hid his face from his father, Regina, Robin and Belle. Even Jesse, asleep in Belle's arms, looked amused.

“Because we’re not _in_ the Enchanted Forest!” Emma argued, the same one she had been making since they got engaged.

“It’s where you came from,” Snow insisted. “You’re still a princess; it’s an important part of your legacy.”

“Mom. No,” Emma snapped.

“Regina?” Snow asked, turning to her stepmother for allies.

Regina, however, gave a little shake of her head. “Trust me, Snow, you don’t want to hear my opinion.”

“Belle?”

“No, thanks. I think I’d like to put the ‘ _evil stepmother_ ’ trope to rest.”

“Where did you get married the last time?” Robin asked, cutting across whatever Snow had been about to say next, much to her chagrin.

Emma smiled with nostalgia. “A little cove on the beach in Florida. We found it on a walk.”

“Yeah, it was beautiful,” said Neal. Just a simple ceremony, but then that was all they’d needed. Both of them barefoot in the sand, Emma in an off-white dress bought from a reject shop and Neal in his cleanest shirt and jeans, with just the minister and their next-door neighbours as witnesses (and to mind a two-year-old Henry during the ceremony).

Of course, none of it had _actually_ happened – just a figment of the false lives that Regina had made for them after they’d left Storybrooke – but in Neal’s opinion, that didn’t make it any less real.

“You know, the beach here isn’t too bad,” he suggested, wondering how much they could recreate. He would probably be forced to compromise on wearing shoes this time, though.

But Emma grimaced and shook her head. “In January?”

Neal hadn’t thought of that. “Yeah, okay. Point taken.”

“So change the date,” said Regina as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Yeah, well, it was the date that we picked in our other memories, and I kinda like it,” said Emma.

“Plus, keeping it means we won’t get the dates mixed up,” Neal added. “It’s confusing enough as it is.”

“Oh!” Belle perked up, eyes brightening with an idea. “What about the woods, then? I know there are some nice spots along the hiking trail.”

That actually didn’t sound so bad, in Neal’s opinion. He turned to Emma, who looked in agreement; Snow, however, was not.

“Come on, you can do a little more upscale than a wedding in the woods.”

“Look, Snow,” Neal interrupted, sure he’d regret it, “we just don’t feel like ‘big and fancy’ is really our speed.”

“This doesn’t concern you!”

Yep, knew he’d regret it. “Sorry, I guess I got thrown off by my name being on the invite.”

“Grandma Snow, shouldn’t Dad be involved in planning his own wedding?” asked Henry in complete innocence, an image not helped by the cartoon tiger on his juice pouch.

“Take it from me, Henry,” said Robin. “As the groom, pretty much all you have to do is show up, hide your hangover, and try to say the right name.”

There was a pause. Eyes turned on Robin from every angle; he had turned a rather bright shade of pink.

“You said the wrong name?” said Belle, barely hiding a giggle.

If it was possible, Robin turned even redder. “Uh …”

“Not exactly,” Alan offered with a cheeky grin. “He forgot what it was.”

“Ah, shuddup.”

“Stood there blustering for a good five minutes; looked a right goose, poor Marian had to –”

Robin fixed him with a steely glare. “You better shut your trap before I tell ‘em what happened when you got married.”

Well, that was interesting. Neal put his spoon down, tuning in to pay attention along with the others. On the seat next to Alan, Evelyn snapped her head up.

“How do you know about that?” asked Alan’s wife. “You weren’t there.”

Robin shrugged. “Late nights at the Duke’s Head, one too many beers.”

“Alan!” Evelyn exclaimed, slapping her husband on the arm.

“Sorry,” said Alan, grimacing in shame. “So I guess another good piece of advice is don’t get drunk.”

Hesitantly, Neal asked: “You mean the night before, right?”

Robin and Alan shared a look. “Yeah, that’s also a good idea,” Robin mumbled, rubbing his chin absent-mindedly and avoiding Regina’s eyes.

While Belle and Emma hid their giggles, and Henry looked confused, Neal took advantage of the lull in conversation to lean back in the seat and rubbed his stomach contentedly. He wasn’t one for spicy foods, but that – whatever Much had called it, _khoresh_ or something – had been delicious. Granny had better hire him fast, or she was in for serious competition.

The lull was not to last, sadly, as Snow wasn’t the type to be distracted by a change of conversation.

“I still think –”

Rumplestiltskin cleared his throat. “I know it’s not traditional for the father of the groom to contribute to the wedding plans, but may I interject something here? I do believe the engaged couple have the right to a ceremony that suits them rather than to have out-dated customs forced upon them.”

Snow blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“I think that’s his way of saying you’re turning into the Mother-of-the-Bridezilla,” Robin offered. Then he turned to Regina and added: “That is the phrase, right?”

“I am not!” Snow exclaimed.

“You are, actually.” Regina stretched out a hand to her stepdaughter. “Snow, look –”

“This is my daughter’s wedding, and I’m not having it in the middle of the woods officiated by an outlaw priest! No offence, Robin.”

“A wedding in the woods sounds good to me,” said Rumplestiltskin, sipping his tea nonchalantly.

Snow huffed. “You mean to tell me that you’re fine with this? Your only son? Getting married in a _forest_?”

“Entirely. They should have the ceremony in a place of their own choosing.”

“Not the woods!”

And so the argument had begun. Neal sighed. He couldn’t find it in him to be truly exasperated with his future/sort-of-already-mother-in-law. She had been through a lot recently, what with a newborn to care for, and the second Dark Curse, and David – well, he thought he understood why she was trying to distract herself from it all. In truth, Neal would have gone along with anything that Emma was happy with – all he wanted was to marry the woman he loved, for real.

“Here’s an idea,” he said in an undertone to his fiancée while the familial dispute raged around them. “Why don’t we just go down to the town hall, sign the papers, and let them all know after the fact?”

Emma chuckled, then lifted her juice box. “I will drink to that.”

“So Operation Seagull is on?” asked Henry, the only person left listening as the rest of the family argued around them.

“We really gotta to give you a lesson in how to name things, buddy,” said Neal, clinking juices with Emma.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Neal Nolan is named Jesse Nolan in this story, as Neal/Baelfire is obviously well and alive. I named him before we knew David’s father’s name in canon and it’s based on the name of the Biblical King David’s father (Jesse)


End file.
